An office-bearer of the Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (TPDK) has filed a public interest litigation petition in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the Centre to recall Governor Banwarilal Purohit on the ground that he had reportedly failed to discharge his constitutional duty on the issue of a recommendation made by the State Cabinet on September 9, 2018, to release all seven convicts in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
The case is expected to be listed before a Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and R. Hemalatha on Monday. The petitioner, M. Kannadasan, Kancheepuram district president of TPDK, had made the Union Home Ministry and Governor Banwarilal Purohit, by name, the respondents to the PIL petition. The registry had numbered the case without following the usual practice of listing it before the judges concerned for deciding its maintainability.
In an affidavit filed through his counsel S. Doraisamy and V. Elangovan, the petitioner said, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur on May 22, 1991. The Central Bureau of Investigation probed into the case and arrested 26 people including five women. Of those who were arrested, 13 were Indians and the rest Srilankan Tamils. After a thorough investigation, a charge sheet was filed against as many as 41 accused on May 22, 1992.
The prime accused in the case was Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief V. Prabhakaran. Out of the 41 accused, 26 were in judicial custody at the time of filing of charge sheet. Three were shown as absconding accused and 12 were claimed to have died during the course of investigation. A special court was constituted for trial which began on January 19, 1994, and a judgement was delivered on January 28, 1998, awarding death sentence to all 26 accused.
When the matter was taken on appeal, the Supreme Court on May 11, 1999, acquitted 19 of the accused. It, however, confirmed the death sentence awarded to convicts S. Nalini, Suthendraraja, Sriharan and Perarivalan besides modifying the death sentences imposed on Robert Payas, Jayakumar and Ravichandran to life imprisonment. Subsequently, Nalini’s death was commuted to life by the Governor and the other convict’s capital punishment was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court itself.
“As on date, the above seven prisoners are detained in prison for past 29 years. Whereas the persons who killed Mahatma Gandhi were released from jail within 16 years of imprisonment. The reason for the discrimination is not known except the fact that they are Tamils,” the petitioner said and listed over various events that took place since 2014 with respect to the release of the seven Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts.
Pointing out that the Council of Ministers had made a recommendation to the Governor on September 9, 2018, for premature release of all seven convicts and stating that the Governor was yet to take a decision on the issue, the petitioner said, the delay amounted to the Governor having failed to act upon the aid and advice of the Cabinet. Therefore, he was liable to be removed from the post, the petitioner claimed.
